Abstract
Some suggest that gene editing human embryos to prevent genetic disorders will be in one respect morally preferable to using genetic selection for the same purpose: gene editing will benefit particular future persons, while genetic selection would merely replace them. We first construct the most plausible defence of this suggestion-the benefit argument-and defend it against a possible objection. We then advance another objection: the benefit argument succeeds only when restricted to cases in which the gene-edited child would have been brought into existence even if gene editing had not been employed. Our argument relies on a standard account of comparative benefit which has recently been criticised on the grounds that it succumbs to the so-called 'pre-emption problem'. We end by considering how our argument would be affected were the standard account revised in an attempt to evade this problem. We consider three revised accounts and argue that, on all three, our critique of the benefit argument stands.
Highlights
THE BENEFIT ARGUMENTHaving no cystic fibrosis alleles, Barry will neither develop cystic fibrosis nor pass it on to any children he may go on to have
Some suggest that gene editing human embryos to prevent genetic disorders will be in one respect morally preferable to using genetic selection for the same purpose: gene editing will benefit particular future persons, while genetic selection would merely replace them
The cases in which the argument is most likely to apply are those in which gene editing is used to prevent a mild disorder, and these are precisely the cases in which the standard, risk-based objections to editing out disease are most likely to outweigh the moral advantages posited by the benefit argument
Summary
Having no cystic fibrosis alleles, Barry will neither develop cystic fibrosis nor pass it on to any children he may go on to have In this case, Bellamy and Blair choose to bring one possible future child into existence, rather than another, on the basis that the chosen child will not suffer from a particular genetic disease. Others may have the same thought in mind when they claim that editing out disease is ‘therapeutic’ or ‘curative’—both adjectives that could not plausibly be applied to selecting against disease.2 Defenders of this thought may argue that, in Edited Larry, editing out disease benefits Larry because, had such gene editing not occurred, Larry would have been born with cystic fibrosis; he would have been, in at least one way, worse off than he is. We argue (i) that the first premise fails to hold in relation to many likely future instances of editing out disease, and (ii) that restricting the scope of the premise to avoid this problem deprives the argument of much of its practical significance.
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